WTA Queen’s Club draw: Elena Rybakina top seed, Emma Raducanu and Alex Eala face qualifiers
Elena Rybakina will headline the 2026 Queen’s Club Championship and she finds herself in the same half as third seed Victoria Mboko and French Open semi-finalist Marta Kostyuk.
World No 2 and top seed Rybakina – who has a bye into the second round along with second seed Amanda Anisimova, Mboko and fourth seed Belinda Bencic – will open her campaign against either Maria Sakkari or a qualifier.
The two-time Grand Slam winner reached the quarter-final in London 12 months ago so has 108 points to defend at the grass-court WTA 500 event and she will likely have to get past eighth seed Leylah Fernandez in the last eight if she is go one better this year.
Canadian Fernandez faces a tricky opener as she takes on British wildcard Katie Boulter in her first-round match with the winner going on to face either Zheng Qinwen or Jacqueline Cristian.
If the seeds hold, then Rybakina will take on teenager Mboko in the semi-final.
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The 19-year-old Mboko will face either Karolina Pliskova – who used her protected ranking to enter the main draw – or McCartney M Kessler in the second round before a potential clash with Kostyuk.
Fifth seed Kostyuk – who has jumped to a new career-high of No 12 in the WTA Rankings on the back of her French Open performance – starts against 17-year-old British wildcard Mika Stojsavljevic.
Anisimova finished runner-up to Iga Swiatek at Wimbledon last year and she is the favourite to emerge from the bottom half of the draw. She will take on either wildcard Fran Jones or Laura Siegemund in the round of 16 while she is projected to meet sixth seed Iva Jovic in the quarter-final.
Jovic starts against a qualifier and victory will see her meet either another qualifier or her good friend Alex Eala – whom she beat in the first round at Roland Garros – for a place in the quarter-final.
Bencic leads the top section of the bottom half and she starts against wildcard Harriet Dart or Liudmila Samsonova while she is expected to meet seventh seed Sorana Cirstea in the quarter-final if the seeds hold.
Romanian Cirstea starts against a qualifier before a possible meeting against Emma Raducanu – who also faces a qualifier in the first round.
Raducanu, of course, has played only two matches since March as she struggled with a post-viral infection and made her comeback in Strasbourg, where she lost in the first round against Diane Parry before suffering a straight-set defeat at the hands of Solana Sierra in her opening at Roland Garros.
The qualifiers will only be placed at the end of the qualifying tournament on Sunday.
